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Ho-KAY. If you say so, oh Anointed King!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

RNC CHAIRMAN, MICHAEL STEELE IS HONEST ABOUT THE GOP

Fox News' Glenn Beck laid into RNC Chairman Michael Steele during an interview Friday following the House's passing of the stimulus bill, telling him that the party had "betrayed" conservatives. "My radio audience is more pissed at you guys than the Democrats" Beck explained. Beck went on to say that conservatives didn't expect "socialism" from some members of the GOP. Steele's response: "You have absolutely no reason, none, to trust our word or our actions at this point."Ah, an unintended moment of truth from the GOP.

And that, Mr. Steele, is why they gave you the job of RNC chairman?

Who are conservatives and Republicans going to believe? The guy who says the GOP can’t be trusted who has been entrusted with THEIR party, or…ummmm... the guy who says the GOP can’t be trusted?

17 comments:

Michael Steele is exactly right. The GOP "leaders" in Washington have failed so miserably to listen to their base, most of us conservatives don't trust the bastards, and have no reason to for a while.

Hell, I was glad when my US Senator (Voinovich - OH) announced he wasn't going to run because I'd never vote for him again. I urged my sister to vote against John Boehner (her US Rep). And should I even get into bashing McCain?

Sounds like it's time to clean out the deadwood of the party. And that starts with Senators, Specter, Snowe, and Collins.

However, one name might be enough, after a couple years, to inspire a willingness to trust the GOP one more time and hope they earn it back:

Does the republican base even know what it stands for? Certainly not integrity on the part of those they vote for. Less government? Fiscal restraint? Humble foreign policy? If these are their ideals they sure don't vote for republican candidates that share them.

One other thing, Patrick. The last president and past leader of the Republican Party used to preach that it will take years and years and years to determine whether or not his was a failed presidency.

You and others in the GOP have already passed jusgement on Obama as a failure.

Don't you understand how ridiculous, childish and, I have to say, dumb that is?

Talk to us a year from now, and maybe we'll be able to have a conversation.

And remember:

George Bush was 9 months into his administration when we had the worst attack on American soil. The worst.

The American people didn't abandon him. At least not then. It took them 6 more years to wake up.

And when that attack happened, the apologists for the GOP blamed Bill Clinton for not going after Osama bin Laden when he had the chance.

If, Darwin forbid, we have another attack, I hope you and the GOP will remember that the blame will have to be placed on George W. Bush for not getting OBL, and for leaving the US so vulnerable to attack.

Yes, the conservatives CAN have it both ways and HAVE had it both ways since Reagan.

The principles of lower taxes and smaller government gets them lower taxes, more government spending, and bigger government.

But government spending isn't all that bad if it goes to the right companies; heck I even bought Exxon Mobil and Haliburton on the day Bush was elected in 2000. Whew, I got big profits and lower taxes! Thank you George Bush and the Iraq war!

Foreign policy? No such thing as they believe foreign policy should be run by the Pentagon.

Who cares who can be trusted...its all about personal gain!

Now all they got to do is hope and pray the country implodes and THEN they will get this baby back!

What would the GOP have done if the Democrats had stood firm and voted against the prescription drug program, No child left behind and the Iraq war? Should have replaced all of them with tax cuts!

And things are nearly always simple in some folks world. GWB won in 2004 with a GOP campaign emphasizing yet again the character & values which 'won' him the election in 2000. Standard Atwater/Rove strategy. Throw enough mud and a lot is sure to stick. Only in this day and age, with a post-literate electorate can a draft-dodger be considered more patriotic and 'American' than an actual war hero.

You and others in the GOP have already passed jusgement on Obama as a failure.

I can't speak for those less enlightened than the greatness of I myself, but I have never stated Obama is a failure.

I have predicted failure for the unholy Porkuls bill (love that name). I have opposed it because it violates every principle. But as for the President, I'm hoping for wisdom to prevail on something. I just haven't seen it yet.

As for 9/11: If a similar crisis comes, I'll stand behind my president.

As for blame, I'll borrow a phrase that NASA has to use every so often: Failure of Imagination.

Clinton should have gotten Bin Laden. Had he known what the terrorists were capable of, I think he would have. But at some point, blame is pointless, and what happened happened.

The Swift Boat Vets stood behind their charges, and still do. Remember, there's 200 of them. Kerry promised to release his service records to refute the SBVs, but to this day has yet to sign the forms required.

Kerry served honorably. Heroically? Some would say so, others not. Without doubt he then spent the next few years slandering his fellow vets.

And before you accuse GWB of being a draft dodger: Show me the draft notice. Show me evidence that he used any political influence to avoid service. Demonstrate to me how volunteering to fly single-engine century-series fighter aircraft in the defense of the U.S. is less than honorable. The pilots couldn't buy life insurance at any price.

Explain to me how the fact that after training, he volunteered for Vietnam service and was passed over for more experienced pilots doesn't render your entire pissy little snark useless.

Four months before enlisting, Bush reported at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts to take the Air Force Officers Qualification Test. While scoring 25 percent for pilot aptitude – "about as low as you could get and be accepted," according to Martin – and 50 percent for navigator aptitude in his initial testing, he scored 95 percent on questions designed to reflect "officer quality," compared with a current-day average of 88 percent.

Among the questions Bush had to answer on his application forms was whether he wanted to go overseas. Bush checked the box that said: "do not volunteer."

Fourth of seven articlesTwo weeks before he was to graduate from Yale, George Walker Bush stepped into the offices of the Texas Air National Guard at Ellington Field outside Houston and announced that he wanted to sign up for pilot training.

It was May 27, 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War. Bush was 12 days away from losing his student deferment from the draft at a time when Americans were dying in combat at the rate of 350 a week. The unit Bush wanted to join offered him the chance to fulfill his military commitment at a base in Texas. It was seen as an escape route from Vietnam by many men his age, and usually had a long waiting list.

Bush had scored only 25 percent on a "pilot aptitude" test, the lowest acceptable grade. But his father was then a congressman from Houston, and the commanders of the Texas Guard clearly had an appreciation of politics.

Bush was sworn in as an airman the same day he applied. His commander, Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, was apparently so pleased to have a VIP's son in his unit that he later staged a special ceremony so he could have his picture taken administering the oath, instead of the captain who actually had sworn Bush in. Later, when Bush was commissioned a second lieutenant by another subordinate, Staudt again staged a special ceremony for the cameras, this time with Bush's father the congressman – a supporter of the Vietnam War – standing proudly in the background.

Bush's father went on to run for senator in 1970 against Lloyd Bentsen Jr. – a prominent Texas Democrat whose own son had been placed in the same Texas Guard unit by the same Col. Staudt around the same time as Bush. On Election Day, before the polls closed, Guard commanders nominated both George W. Bush and Lloyd Bentsen III for promotion to first lieutenant – even as the elder Bentsen was defeating the elder Bush.

Three decades later, as Bush begins a campaign for the presidency that has invited new scrutiny of his life, Staudt and other Guard commanders insist no favoritism was shown to him. But others active in Texas politics in the 1960s say the Texas National Guard was open to string-pulling by the well-connected, and there are charges that the then-speaker of the Texas legislature helped George W. gain admittance.

Bush was a college graduate--an Ivy League graduate. He wasn't some high school graduate, trying for the limited slots available as enlisted men. The ANG wanted people like him as officers (and pilots). The ANG was short of pilots, and was happy to get him. This is the essential fact that those ignorant of the way things work in the ANG and AF Reserve miss. There was no waiting list for pilots.

I didn't say he volunteered for overseas service when he took the AFOQT. What I wrote was that he volunteered for combat service in Vietnam after he completed his pilot training. He was turned down, because there were pilots with more experience who also volunteered.

A lot of people spent a lot of time looking for evidence that GWB somehow evaded service, or acted with cowardice. They failed to find it, because the evidence didn't exist. Then they decided to forge some. Even after the forgery was revealed, they claimed that the bogus documents represented the truth.

Shaw, you at least went with legitimate sources. I appreciate that. And a careful reading of the articles you cite shows they do not contradict what I wrote.

There's a reason the men and women of the armed forces, and especially combat aircrew, have always accepted GWB's service as legitimate and honorable. That's because it was.

Gordon, Gordon, Gordon, WOW, not only am I amazed that anyone is still out there fighting for the good name of our x-president the war criminal, but I am more amazed that you would attach your name and picture to that defense. If I had supported Bush in either election, I'd be wearing a bag over my head. Maybe even two, in case the first one broke.

Joining the Texas Air National Guard at the height of the Vietnam war ensured GWB would not serve in the conflict. It was a near-impossibility to join organizations at that time without substantial political connections and those slots guaranteed that those who filled them would not be drafted. And those who weren't drafted definitely wouldn't go overseas. I don't think I quite buy the rather tall sounding tale that GWB 'volunteered' to serve in Vietnam after completing his training but 'more experienced pilots' made that impossible.

Vietnam was the defining struggle of his time. Good vs. evil. Freedom vs. communism. Had he wished he could have, as Kerry did, found a way to serve.

The 'charges' against Kerry may be large in number but they are only useful as a smear. He volunteered He served honorably. He was decorated. His opponent did none of those things.

But here you hit the nail on the head when you brought up his 'slandering fellow vets'. It was a courageous thing to challenge conventional thinking regarding the war. Turns out there was an enormous number of atrocities committed by US troops in Vietnam. Turns out there was indiscriminate US bombing resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousand of SE Asian civilians.

Turns out Kerry was right and that Vietnam, by virtually any measure was, as Iraq is, a criminal enterprise with those most guilty shielded from having to assume culpability for their actions.